The Panasqueira Mine in Portugal announces that the second tailings dam has been completed and is ready for operation.

The Panasqueira mine, which has been in production since 1896, is located approximately 260 kilometres northeast of Lisbon, Portugal, was acquired in January 2016 and produces tungsten concentrate. Canada-based Almonty Industries Inc., through its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Beralt Tin and Wolfram (Portugal) SA (“Beralt”), owns a 100% interest in the Panasqueira Tin Tungsten mine located in Covilha Portugal. Beralt is the oldest Portuguese mining Company.

The completion of the second tailings dam (phase one) will enable Panasqueira to process and store tailings for another 6 years at the rate of 800,000 ton mining per annum. € 1,000,000 has been spent over 3 years towards the construction of this new tailings dam. All the pumping and piping systems connecting the processing plant and the new tailings dam have been installed and have completed a trial operation.
The first pumping of tailings to the new tailings dam is expected to begin before January 2020 when the remaining capacity of the old tailings dam would have been fully consumed. The new tailings dam has been designed in compliance with the environmental and safety regulations of Portugal and the EU. In addition to the application of stringent safety standards in the engineering, the new tailings dam is designed for the second phase expansion for an additional 4 years by placing a surrounding 10 meter height retaining wall. A further phase three is now planned to increase capacity by a further 10 years. Thus, a total of 20 years additional capacity is anticipated after the completion of all three phases.

Almonty’s Chairman, President and CEO Lewis Black said: “We are pleased to report the meaningful development at each of the Almonty mines. The completion of the second tailings dam at Panasqueira will ensure the tailings to be generated in the next 10 years from this historic mine to find its place in this new tailings dam assuring the continued seamless operation of the mine which has more than 20 years of LOM under NI 41-101 resources. The new tailings dam will be instrumental to this premier mine which still produces the best quality wolframite concentrate, continuing its record-breaking journey at the steady pace of 700,000 to 750,000 tpa mining.

Source:
Almonty
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